Egypt cleric 'to ban full veils' - custom has nothing to do with the Islamic faith

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk Egypt's highest Muslim authority has said he will issue a religious edict against the growing trend for full women's veils, known as the niqab. Sheikh Mohamed Tantawi, dean of al-Azhar university, called full-face veiling a custom that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith. Although most Muslim women in Egypt wear the Islamic headscarf, increasing numbers are adopting the niqab as well. The practice is widely associated with more radical trends of Islam. The niqab question reportedly arose when Sheikh Tantawi was visiting a girls' school in Cairo at the weekend and asked one of the students to remove her niqab. The Egyptian newspaper al-Masri al-Yom quoted him expressing surprise at the girl's attire and telling her it was merely a tradition, with no connection to religion or the Koran.

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Comment:

I don't want to disparage the relevance of the Sheikh's sentiment, in no way. But the fact of the matter is that a voice like his is only one in the polyphonic (and I say, cacophonous) score of multitudinous Islamic voices. Muslims don't believe in a catholic (universal), pope-like authority (nevertheless, many if not most of them follow the preachings of a picked set of sheikhs, imams or ayatollahs).

There are antithetic voices in the Islamic polyphony. No surprise - cloaking the entire female body (be it including the eyes or not) is an item of the Qur'an and of the sunnah:

The Noble Qur'an - Al-Ahzab 33:59

O Prophet! Tell your wives and your daughters and the women of the believers to draw their cloaks (veils)* all over their bodies (i.e. screen themselves completely except the eyes or one eye to see the way). That will be better, that they should be known (as free respectable women) so as not to be annoyed. [...]

*the arabic word here is Jalabeeb (plural of Jalbaab), which is the loose outer garment that covers all a woman's body. It says here to use the Jalabeeb to cover all, and scholars say this means to use it to cover her head (agree upon by all scholars) and her face (agreed by many scholars, not all) and one or both eyes, in order for it to be known that she is a free woman and so not to be exposed to any harm.
[...]

Muslims and Muslimahs across the world have been in "hot debate" for centuries, over the issue of whether or not covering the face is obligatory upon a Muslimah. Those who argue that it is not required, point to the use of the word khimar in the Qur'an, and [...] argue that khimar has never referred to the covering of the face [...]. While one cannot deny the support of Hadith that indicate that the Prophet's wives wore khimar, one must realize that they also covered their faces at all times in the presence of non-mahram men.

[↗Muttaqun on Niqab (Affixed Face Veil): According to Quran and Sunnah]

Now - "face veiling a custom that has nothing to do with the Islamic faith"???

The sources - the Qur'an and the sunnah - the Sheikh refers to can evoke and justify views (and beliefs) that dissent from his opinion.

I am not trying to debate anything. I only advert to the problem the Islamic scholars have with the fact that in Islam, on the one hand, not only Muslim habits at the time of Mohammed but also pre-Islamic Arabic customs and, on the other hand, substantially Islamic matters are (in my humble opinion, inextricably) interwoven.